Free Your Mind
by Elred Bluegreen
Summary: Haunted by a ghost of the past... who may be more than she thinks he is. ... I think. Read the Author's notes for more info.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: I think. I didn't know that I drank, or anything, but I blacked out on Sunday and woke up... today. Weird, huh? That, and I... apparently wrote this. Apparently, I DO drink. A lot. Well, assuming this is mine, I'll post it here for you peeps anyway, along with the Christmas special that I DO remember writing.

* * *

The first time was long, long ago. Back in Wakayama.

Ayumu Kasuga was an up-and-coming child at the age of five, as far as the rest of the world knew. She wasn't 'off' like she was known for later in her life, but still, a unique and bright child. Then, one of her friends began confiding in her a secret.

That friend had recently broken her arm, falling out of a tree. Only Ayumu knew this had to be wrong—that girl was afraid of heights. She told Ayumu that she had 'come to' up there, panicked, and fell. During her stay in the hospital, something strange began happening to her. The nurse kept coming in, saying there was a visitor in a suit for her, but when this 'visitor' was summoned to the room, he had vanished.

Ayumu had listened intently to her friend as stranger and stranger things began happening. She was released from the hospital, and swore she kept seeing the same, suit-wearing man at several different places, in front of buildings, peering through store windows, peeking out from behind trees. His face was obscured, his features spindly and gangly, and he seemed boney like a skeleton.

She began having dreams. Dreams, only vaguely remembered, involving a tree, and fire. She began seeing the gangly man more and more often, closer and closer. The dreams became more vivid, and she became more nervous and incoherent. Ayumu did the best she could to comfort her friend, but she became so frightened that her parents sought help.

Her family moved to Tokyo, and wrote often to tell Ayumu that the girl was improving every day. Being only five at the time, she believed them.

Eventually, the slender man was all but forgotten to Ayumu Kasuga, who developed her trademark eccentricity a short while afterward. Whether it was her own fated growth, or a means of coping with stress, was lost to her soon enough.

I: Fall

"Look, Miss Osaka!" Short, redheaded, and pigtailed, Chiyo Mihama was an undeniably prodigious youth. Transferring to the most regarded high school in Tokyo at the tender young age of ten years, she was nevertheless courteous, humble, kind, and mature beyond her years. Despite this, she was still a child who enjoyed a day at the park. Her tiny face was beaming the warmth of the sun as it shone down on her skin. She was pointing towards a group of boys a few meters away, who were flying kites. "Isn't that cool?"

Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga, who had been seated placidly on the park bench, watching her young friend play with her dog, Mr. Tadakichi (who was twice as large as his owner) and thinking her own thoughts, took notice of the kites.

"Wow, you're right, Chiyo-chan." She agreed. "It's just windy enough for kites."

"I should've brought mine. My mom taught me how to make a simple kite a little while ago, and I was waiting for the perfect day to try it out." Another thing Chiyo had going for her was that her family was one of the richest in the country. In Japan, where rough terrain led to absolutely cramped cities and property wasn't cheap compared to that in other areas of the world, the Mihamas owned not one, but _two_ homes, a mansion and a summer cabin that was still quite spacious.

For this reason, it wasn't surprising to Osaka that Chiyo had been taught to make her own kite... but a completely different thought came to her mind that she had to voice.

"You know," she murmured, as her tiny friend sat next to her, "I think, that if we made a big enough kite and strap you to it, you'd be able to fly, Chiyo-chan."

Chiyo laughed nervously. Sometimes, it was hard to tell whether she was joking or not.

"I... don't, think that'd be such a good idea, Miss Osaka." She pointed out carefully, "It... just doesn't work that way."

"Oh, I get it. So flying's impossible..."

With a sigh, Chiyo resumed watching the boys fly their kites. Sometimes, it was the best option to just leave Osaka with a thought like that, since it impeded her from hurting herself. Although, granted, it wasn't always easy to determine whether Osaka had been convinced of something or merely lost interest in the conversation...

"You know, something's kind of been sticking in the back of my head recently, Chiyo-chan. Lookin' at all these kites... reminds me of something. Can't really remember what."

Leaping at the subject change, Chiyo replied, "it might be deja vu. When you feel like you've gone through a moment before when you really haven't."

"Except, I know what it is I'm trying to remember. I just... can't remember." Osaka's vagueness was to be expected, but for some unfathomable reason, her tone carried a somber, concerned, and serious vibe that Chiyo had never heard in her before.

"Is something wrong, Miss..."

"No." Osaka replied sternly, causing Chiyo to jump in surprise. Mr. Tadakichi reacted as well, watching the conversation more intently, but remaining silent. Seemingly realizing how she'd just spoken, Osaka repeated herself in a gentler, but still serious tone. "No. I'm fine."

She leaned back, heaving a sigh of her own, as her gaze tracked downward from the kites. "That guy down there looks pretty nice, doesn't he?" She asked, to Chiyo's confusion.

"Down where?"


	2. Chapter 2

II. Under

It was hardly a memory of a dream. In fact, it was more of a memory of the thought of remembering a dream, too clear to forget, too vague to recall.

This was all Osaka knew the next morning. All she knew about her dream was that she had been scared, at the mercy of something... but that was everything she could gather. It was unusual for her dreams to be so hard to recollect, even more so for them to be so horrifying that she woke up with white knuckles from clutching the bedsheets so hard.

Shaking the thoughts off like cobwebs on an old door, she brought herself to her feet and began her preparations for the day.

For some reason, she felt more exhausted than usual as she sat through class, only vaguely aware of Ms. Yukari's rant to the class. It had something to do with Chiyo, but other than that, Osaka's focus was simply too foggy to fashion a legible thought. The characters on the chalkboard melted together, white clouds on a green sky, and then... began to reshape themselves.

Osaka rubbed her eyes, transfixed by the figures being formed before her, Kanji characters. Her vision, though, was too out-of-focus for her to make them out, no matter how she strained her eyes. Deep inside of her, she felt a sudden chill. Like she was being watched, but she couldn't look away from the words on the board. Then, they lashed out at her.

With a shriek, Osaka scrambled for safety below her table. Her chair fell backwards, and her classroom materials were thrown off the surface of the desk onto the floor.

Everyone in the room looked on quietly as Osaka curled into a ball and started shaking uncontrollably, in spite of herself, her face and some of her shirt covered in fine white dust. As far as they knew, she'd merely been startled awake by Yukari's well-aimed piece of chalk.

"So, you learned your lesson this time, Osaka?" Yukari fumed, yanking another piece from the small green box on her desk. She, too, didn't suspect that there was anything else wrong. "Fall asleep in my class again and see what happens!"

Osaka did NOT want to see what happened next time.

Chiyo was the last person to get to her group's lunch table, because she had offered her place in line to several students, several times, and each time she'd gone back to the end of the line. Her kindness, though commendable, didn't often turn a profit for her.

There were her friends... most of them, anyway. Yomi was arguing with Tomo, likely over something trivial that Tomo started. Kagura was trying to get into a conversation with Sakaki, who acted wholly uninterested, staring out the window at a flight of birds that happened by. Osaka, however, was missing.

"Yomi?" Chiyo asked, trying to get her attention.

"I was not, don't go making up crap like that!" Yomi spat, her tone defensive, as Tomo leered smugly over her.

"Then why'd he have your glasses this morning, then?" She jeered, high-and-mightily looking down at Yomi over her nose, "Sounds to me like this had something to do with him going to the park yesterday..."

"I wasn't at the park! I dropped my glasses somewhere along the line yesterday afternoon, he probably came across them and brought them to me!"

"And he knew that they were yours? Oh, so likely..."

Chiyo raised a finger, immediately catching both of their attentions.

"What time was this guy supposed to be at the park?" She asked gently. Tomo put in that it was 5 o'clock he was there.

"Well, Miss Osaka and I were at the park, and we didn't see Yomi there."

Tomo's face completely froze. The meaning of the words sank in slowly, but assuredly, and just as the realization hit her, Yomi had finished rising from her seat, her plastic lunch tray and the remains of her curry in hand.

Seeing how Yomi had reacted, and Tomo splattered with curry and nursing a substantial lump on her forehead, Chiyo decided that the less she knew about that argument, the better off she'd be.

"Have you seen Miss Osaka since English, Yomi?" She asked carefully.

"Hm.. no, I haven't. She's probably having some kind of episode, though, seeing what she was like in class."

"She was on a total hair trigger." Kagura added, having given up on conversing with Sakaki. "I'd check the bathrooms and the roof. She might just be looking for a nice, quiet place to blow off some steam."

"Or maybe she found a guy to spend lunch with." Tomo conjectured, earning another hearty knock on the head from Yomi.

"What is with you today?" Yomi demanded, "As sad as you may feel about your personal life, that's no reason to pry into ours, and especially no reason to start rumors!"

"Um... thanks, Kagura." Since she'd clearly been forgotten by Yomi and Tomo, Chiyo stood again and walked towards the restrooms.

Something wasn't right. Osaka felt it in the air, and the feeling seeped into the innermost levels of her mind, conscious and subconscious. Her brain, therefore, wasn't quite as it normally was. She found herself focusing on but a few sharp thoughts. The trees in the park. The kites in the air. The characters on the chalkboard in her dream. And... fire.

Fire was everywhere, catching every thought she could think of, igniting them as they swirled around in a dim, smokey haze. Her thoughts were clear enough to identify, but not clear enough to recognize, understand. She couldn't pick out the branches in the trees, or the kite strings, or even make out the characters of her strange dream. And all this bothered her because, no matter what she did, she couldn't shake the thoughts out of her head. It was like trying to blow out a campfire.

In fact, they were so vivid, she could barely see out over the schoolyard, despite standing right at the fence overlooking the swimming pool, where a class of male students were going through swimming practice. And she was just dimly aware of Chiyo's approach until she spoke.

"Are you all right, Miss Osaka?" She asked. "You've been acting strange since yesterday."

"Just needed some time alone." Osaka lied. Sure, she wanted to unload her stresses somehow, but burdening Chiyo with them probably wouldn't make things any better. "Don't worry about it."

"If you say so... just, talk to me if you have any problems, OK? You can tell me anything."

_Anything... but not everything._ Despite that thought, Osaka was touched, and felt just a little better as she followed Chiyo back down the stairs into the lunchroom. She was back in control of her own thoughts for the moment, beginning to wonder why hamsters had 'ham' in their name... was it because of guinea 'pigs'?

Author's note: Ah, the crazy things you write when you're drunk out of your mind. Although we didn't even buy any alcohol for our Christmas party... strange. Strange, indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

III: Under?

The very next morning, the mail brought a curious letter from Osaka's old friend.

_ ayumu it's been a long time hasn't it? heaRd About the hIgh school traNsfer and had to write you! how've you Been? hOpe you didn't forget me already. We've Been doing gReat sInce we last saw you. Don't GET wOrried about Me, Old fRiend._

_ i wasn't aROund for grade school, but after i Was finished with the doctor in Tokyo, I went somewhere here and got caught up. My parents even said I might get to transfer to your high school! Remember me or not, we've got a lot of time to catch up, Ayuchi!_

_ -Tamie_

"It's a little off." Osaka reiterated. Chiyo reread the letter and nodded in agreement.

"Yes, it is. Looks like a secret message, but why would she need to hide something like that... was she afraid the post office would look at it?" Placing all the unusual capitals in the letters together presented the message: "RAINBOW BRIDGE TOMORROW".

Osaka had plainly noticed this before, as well. "It really has been a long time since I saw Tamie. I barely remember it, that was back in... dunno, Kindergarten, maybe. It's nice that I'll get to meet her again, though."

"Miss Osaka... the secret message." Chiyo called attention back to the strange cipher, "Do you think it's calling for a meeting of some sort?"

"Maybe something's happening there... that'd be pretty cool. And the way it's hidden like that, it's kinda like a secret spy message! Maybe I'll get to jump off the bridge like they to in the movies... hm?"

"That's kind of what I'm worried about." While Osaka had been going along her potentially dangerous fantasy, Chiyo had wrapped her arms around Osaka's wrist, hoping to bring her back to reality. "If Tamie's hiding things in her letter, there may be something you don't know. Maybe you shouldn't go."

"If you say so."

The next day was Saturday. Despite her promise to Chiyo NOT to go, Osaka had bought some hamburgers from a nearby fast food joint and was waiting there for almost the entire day. The longer she waited, the more anxious she became. Her thoughts began to fall into the same state they were in the previous day, except more details were clear to her.

She remembered the blackboard in her dream. Its characters merging, changing, yes, she could just barely make out 'Fire' and 'Water' in the vision. But what did they mean?

Likewise, why did she see so many trees? Why were trees so important? These questions clawed at her, demanding answers she couldn't produce, which tormented her further.

Finally, however, she remembered what she had seen that day at the park. The tall man in the business suit, that Chiyo hadn't noticed. Chiyo was too observant to miss something as simple as a man wearing a full suit in a park.

Still, she waited, entranced, at the middle of the bridge, without being sure what she was waiting for. It was a short while after 9 o'clock in the evening when she discovered what, as she saw a familiar man walking the bridge on her side, toward her. A man wearing a business suit. Tall and spindly.

He stopped after walking a step past her, facing away. Voices in Osaka's head, her thoughts and memories, all screamed at her, telling her to get away, but her curiosity finally outweighed her instincts.

"Do you know Tamie?" She asked.

There was no answer from the man, but his silhouette seemed to shift. Something about him was terrifying, but magnetic, for lack of a better word, and Osaka was torn between running from him or approaching him. The very sight of him drowned out her senses. The cars passing by faded to a dull ring, the lights of the bridge blurring into a green fog with him at the center.

"Ayumu! Don't look at him! Look away!" A voice yelled, only barely reaching her before the man came alive. Without warning, the green blur, and the man, she saw, erupted into flames, the ringing sound abruptly growing to an ear-piercing shriek, under which the sound of running feet just barely made itself aware.

The tall man turned, revealing a smooth, white, featureless face, without a mouth or nose, and sunken craters that seemed to have rotted their eyes away long ago. Then, as suddenly as it started, the whole vision ended, as Osaka, deafened and horrified, fell backwards over the bridge railing and into the water below.

Osaka's disappearance weighed heavily on Yukari's class, especially after a month passed without any sign of her. Chiyo was probably hit the hardest, having been close friends, but the rest of her group, Yomi, Tomo, Kagura, and Sakaki, were all either saying nothing of it or trying to laugh it off with jokes, like how Osaka will probably turn up in the Bermuda triangle. Even Miss Yukari was trying to hide her feelings under layers of terrible jokes. After that month passed, a new student arrived to take advantage of the vacancy.

She first appeared when Yukari had yet to arrive that morning. There were a few certain curious factors about her—she was only a few inches taller than Chiyo was, and her smokey grey hair was cut short and put up into a small ponytail at the back of her head. Strangely enough, it seemed to the more observant students that the hair had greyed out due to stress, not being a natural shade. She also had burn marks that were visible on her palms and one of her shins. Having quietly arrived and taken her place, she was nonetheless noticed quite shortly after she began unpacking her books.

Chiyo almost felt she had to force herself to be courteous and greet the newcomer—she wasn't sure why, but the thought came to her that Osaka couldn't be replaced. Why this barred her natural kindness, however, was beyond her entirely.

"Good morning," she said with a forged brightness that anyone who knew her could recognize, "I'm Mihama Chiyo, the class representative for this homeroom."

The girl, however, couldn't recognize that Chiyo was on edge.

"Morning to you, too, Mihama." Reaching out and shaking Chiyo's hand... Chiyo jumped a little, for the hand that met hers was clammy and stone cold. Almost unnaturally so.

"I'm Yamada Tamie." The girl continued. Again, she was oblivious to Chiyo's true emotions... which now grew from creeping dislike to anger.

"Tamie?" Chiyo repeated, as though she may have heard incorrectly. To no avail.

"Yeah, Tamie. If you want to go by first names, I guess... I don't mind that." Tamie laughed. "I usually have to know people a while before I..."

"You knew Miss Osaka, didn't you? You were the one who sent that letter!"

_Letter._ Tamie stopped mid-sentence, her mouth drawing into a firm line.

"You mean... Ayumu, right?" She asked weakly, her cheerful inflection vanished.

"You sent that letter about Rainbow bridge!" Chiyo incriminated, "You were there, weren't you? You did something to her! You know where she is!"

"K... kid, let's not get carried away here..." Tamie's eyes widened, and she brought her hands up to defend herself.

"You do, don't you? What did you do to my friend?" In spite of herself, Chiyo's voice rose, growing louder and louder with every word she yelled at Tamie, until she couldn't contain herself any more and began flailing her arms at her in blind fury. This only lasted a few seconds as Kagura snared Chiyo's arms and held her back.

"The hell's gotten into you?" She demanded, looking up apologetically at Tamie. "She really isn't like this all the time, trust me. She's just shaken up since our friend went missing."

"It was her, don't you see?" Chiyo relented, straining against Kagura's grip almost mindlessly. Kagura found, with surprise, that she had to work a bit to keep Chiyo from breaking free.

"Calm down, Chiyo! Don't take out your anger on the new girl just because she's the closest to your size!" Yomi added.

Tamie only looked on with an unidentifiable expression, a mixture of apology and remorse.


	4. Chapter 4

IV: Not easy to explain

Yukari finished with the Tamie's general introduction to the class, surprisingly not singling her out as she normally did with new students, and commenced with the day's English lesson. Chiyo was too perceptive to miss the strange glances cast at her from all across the room, to not hear the mutters of surprise at her outburst, but all in all, she just didn't care. She KNEW Tamie had something to do with Osaka's disappearance, and wouldn't forgive the newcomer until... not even when she divulged the secret.

Her friends, however, couldn't understand why she'd gone off on Tamie with such a seemingly open-air accusation. Especially Yomi, who'd never even believed that anger of this magnitude was one of Chiyo's emotions.

"Tomo, were you putting ideas into her head?" She whispered.

"What do you think?" Tomo shot back, "Why would I get Chiyo to hate the new kid? Does that sound like me... never mind, don't answer that. I just didn't do it this time!"

"Huh..." Yomi wished Tomo hadn't convinced her. That just left the real answer out in thin air... but, as much as she hated to admit it, Tomo had to be right. She wouldn't even be able to keep her joke secret after it played out once.

"Maybe Chiyo might be on to something." She added, to Yomi's surprise. "The two were close friends. She might know something we don't and got it messed up with the new kid."

"Still, you've got to admit that Chiyo's never done anything like that before."

"Osaka's never gone missing for a month before."

"So, where're you from, Yamada?" Yomi asked at lunch that day, stabbing into a strawberry with her fork, "Just somewhere else around Tokyo, or what?"

"Actually, not too far off. We used to live out a ways, though. That was before kindergarten, though. I had to get a... different school." Tamie chose her words carefully. "So, that girl who confronted me this morning, Mihama. You said she wasn't normally like that?"

With a sigh, Yomi ate the strawberry to buy herself a second, and when she finished, explained. "Well, her best friend went missing about a month ago. There's hardly been a trace of her since then, and Chiyo... just didn't take it well at all."

"She's a little young for high school, too, right?"

"Yeah. That's how smart she is, transferring right up from grade school to high school. She gets As in everything except P.E, because of how small she is. Even with her smarts, she never puts herself over anyone. She's always so nice."

Tamie let out her own sigh. "I hope I'm not causing a problem with her, that this is some misunderstanding."

"It probably is. She might just be lashing out at you because she thinks they're trying to replace Osaka so quickly. Normally she's not so quick to point fingers, though."

At the break in the conversation, both Yomi and Tamie looked across the lunchroom. Chiyo was eating, completely alone, staring at the table with a look of pure rage. Clearly, she hadn't cooled off since homeroom.

"I'll go talk to her." Tamie volunteered, pushing her food away and walking across the lunchroom.

When she sat across the table from Chiyo, she expected for the girl to explode on her again, but to the contrary, she only looked away and continued eating. Then again, that gesture seemed to be far more agitated than her anger that morning. Better now than later, Tamie thought.

"Kid... Mihama. I need to explain something to you... but I know you won't really understand this..."

"Try it." Chiyo said flatly.

"OK. Look, you know I wrote the letter, and a smart kid like you isn't going to believe a weird story like this... but you've got to. I swear, it's the truth."

She took a breath, and her face shifted slightly, remembering an old terror. "I wrote four or five different notes to Ayumu, but no matter how I tried... he always got his message through to the paper. I couldn't help it... he can just do things like that. I knew she'd wind up at the bridge that day, no matter what I did, he'd find a way to get her there, and..."

"You're right. I'm not stupid enough to listen to something that insane." Her voice now a growl, Chiyo's eyes finally looked up to meet Tamie's... they weren't the eyes that would normally display such unabashed hatred. They were cold and hostile, and Tamie was forced to avert her gaze.

"It doesn't seem possible, but I'm telling you the truth. I just can't explain him... He's beyond our understanding... kid, you'll know him when you see him. If you ever do, there's only one thing that'll keep you safe. Believe it, deep in your heart, he's not real. He doesn't exist."

"Stop making things up and tell me the truth."

"That IS! He's... He's not real, but he's not fake. He's there if you think he is... he lives in your mind... he..." Tamie's voice dropped to a whisper, her head drew into her chest. "He's always there... waiting for you to believe... and then.. hehe..." She giggled menacingly, mounting a disturbing grin and an unsettling tone. Chiyo grew anxious, scooting a bit away. She didn't believe any of this nonsense one bit... but it was clear that Tamie was just a little unstable.

"You believe for only an instant... and he's right there, as long as he's been following you..." She said manically, starting to shake. "And then... he comes for you..."

"Y... Yamada, you're scaring me..." Chiyo squeaked.

Tamie took no notice. "It has been reported that some victims of torture," She began in a low voice, "during the act, would retreat into a fantasy world from which they could not WAKE UP. In this catatonic state, the victim lived in a world just like their normal one, except they weren't being tortured. The only way that they realized they needed to WAKE UP was a message... a voice, a note, some indication... they found in their fantasy world. It would tell them about their condition, and tell them to WAKE UP. Even then, it would often take months until they were ready to discard their fantasy world and PLEASE WAKE UP!"

"Yamada! He doesn't exist, remember? You were just telling me that!" Chiyo grabbed Tamie's arm and tugged on it as hard as she could. "Stop this, he's not here, whoever he is!"

As abruptly as the episode had started, Tamie went completely limp, save for heavy breathing and trembling. Her face regained its composure, albeit still shaky at best.

"Are you OK?" She asked Chiyo, who was shocked at the question.

"Am I OK? You were... What just happened to you, Yamada? That scared me so much!"

With this, Tamie only frowned. "That's what he does to you." She said. "But Ayumu is his fixation right now, and we have no idea where she is. She could be enduring much, much worse..."

"Why am I even still alive..." Osaka murmured, unmoving. She wasn't sure where she was. Except with him. He knew exactly where she was.

Her clothing was wrinkled, filthy, and torn along the knees, elbows, and cuffs. Mud and bloodstains mixed by the rips in the fabric. Certainly, her leg was broken, too, since she couldn't move it without pain shooting all the way up to the hips.

She'd been staggering in a daze for... she didn't know any more. Weeks, maybe. Propping herself up against anything that would support her weight without breaking, she'd made it this far... but she was scared, confused... and hunted.

The suit-wearing man had appeared to her many times since her fall, always getting closer and closer to her. Every time, it hurt. Every time, it hurt more than the last.

Finally, spiraling in a delirium, she had fallen and stayed down. She had no idea what was going to happen next, but the pain was simply too much for her to take any longer. Still, it went on...

Osaka knew she heard him approaching. She had no way of seeing, with her face down in the dirt, but she knew it. Again, her mind began running through the visions of fire, the kite, the tree... and the chalkboard, all crystal clear. She finally understood...

But it was too late for her to do anything with her knowledge. Her head sank back into the mud as she waited for the worst.


	5. Chapter 5

V: Don't make assumptions...

_"Hey, mom. This is Chiyo, I just wanted to call and say I was staying over at a friend's house tonight. She's a new student, Yamada Tamie. I'm calling from her home phone, so you'll be able to get the number from there. Bye!"_

"Why aren't your parents here?" Chiyo asked, glancing around the living room, which was plainly decorated with two chairs and a television set. Not much else of note.

"They're normally here by now, but today, they had stuff to do." Tamie replied nonchalantly. "It'll be easier for me to explain without them here, anyway. I've got some reading material on..."

She paused for a second. "Saying his name would be the worst thing to do." She corrected herself. Walking down the hallway, she opened one of the two doors. "Anyway, in here."

The room only had three major features... a hammock on one side that probably served as a bed, a rather large and heavy-looking cassette player, and a large bookshelf that nearly covered the wall opposite the hammock.

"My room." Tamie said, proudly sweeping her arm. "You're the first person I've ever brought in here. If only it were for better reason, huh?"

Chiyo was astounded by the sheer volume of literature that Tamie possessed. "Is all of that about the guy?" She inquired.

"What? Oh, no. I'm just a heavy reader. In fact, there aren't really any books about him, save for medical journals from doctors that completely miss the point." She shuddered, having had experience with that example. "It's not a... mainline topic, if you get my drift. I've got a journal, though. Started keeping it when I was sane enough to write without drawing stick men on every page... nine, I think."

"Tamie, I didn't know what you'd gone through... if I'd known before, I wouldn't have gotten so angry at you, thank you so much for the help."

"Ayumu's my friend, too. Way back when, she did her best to help me, so I should return the favor now. Besides, last I knew, she owed me a quarter." Tamie broke down laughing, which prompted a look of shock from Chiyo, who believed that the subject really wasn't a laughing matter. Gradually, Tamie noticed and settled down.

"Sorry." She pulled a large spiral notebook out of the shelf. "Here, Chiyo."

Chiyo didn't know what to expect from the notebook, but she was still afraid to open it, after seeing what this... thing inspired in people. Osaka's disappearance and Tamie's insane outburst in lunch were only two examples of what he—or it—could do.

It turned out, things got far worse inside.

* * *

"C'mon, what's taking you so long?" Tomo hissed, tapping her shoes on the pavement and flipping out her cell phone. It was 9 o'clock.

"Late. Like always, can never show up on time when we agreed..." Grumbling to herself, Tomo had to grip her arm with her free hand to keep from tossing the cell phone away. 7 o'clock, he'd said. Give or take a few minutes, he'd said.

"Whatever. I've got better things to do than wait out in the cold here for that moron, anyway. I bet Yomi has more luck with guys than I do." Angrily, she sulked away from the street corner and toward her house... a one-hour walk. The date was supposed to be over and done with at 8:30, even, meaning that her parents were going to go ballistic when she showed an hour-and-half late and alone.

"Crap." She muttered. "I shouldn't have waited so long for that hoser. I even bought him coffee... two frickin' hours ago! Now it may as well be a popsicle."

There was a sound, just to her right. She whipped around, putting her hands up defensively towards what she thought was the source of the noise. When the sound, a rustling noise, continued, she stepped cautiously towards it, dropping the ice-cold mocha and pulling a small flashlight out of her coat pocket.

"Who's there?" She called, shining the light on the person making the noise... a disheveled mess of a girl whose hair was in tangles and whose clothing was torn. Still, when that girl looked into the beam from the light, those eyes, though bloodshot, were unmistakable.

"Osaka, is that you?" Tomo demanded, "Where the hell have you been? You know you've been gone for a month, right? Here, let me get a picture of you, you should see how you look!"

She fumbled in her pockets for her cell phone, drawing it out of her pocket and aiming it at Osaka, who was approaching slowly, not having spoken a word, a lost and empty expression on her face.

"Here! Now... say cheese!" Tomo clicked the photo button. "Damn, too dark, let me try again... hey, stop looking at me like that! Osaka, are you..."

Slowly, Osaka turned away and walked off, to Tomo's ire. "HEY! Come back here! Where are you going? Come back!"

It was too late. She'd already vanished, leaving Tomo with the only clue in this missing person case for a month.

"What's HER problem?" She groaned.


	6. Chapter 6

VI: Standing Off

Chiyo was truly torn. One half of her was determined, dead set on finding Osaka, wherever she was, and bringing her back. The other half regretted that very thought now, as she read through Tamie's journal, which read like a log of the apocalypse... and, she remembered, this terrifying recollection was that of a nine-year-old girl who had been in a clinic since she was six. Whoever 'he' was that she kept referring to had no conscience whatsoever.

On the other hand, Tamie barely seemed bothered by the journal, as she read along with Chiyo, pointing out details and recurring symbols... having _lived_ the grotesque history for herself, showing and telling bits and pieces was easier for her than reading them was for Chiyo.

"The first thing I normally remember about this whole thing," Tamie had remarked, at the very first page, "is this symbol." She pointed at something she'd drawn taking up half of the first page, a circle with an 'x' drawn through it. The 'x' had been drawn into the paper by pressing the pen down so hard that it tore through two or three pages past the first.

"What does it mean, Tamie?"

"I dunno. I couldn't stop drawing it—in some form, it's on almost every page." Tamie wet her finger with her tongue and turned the pages, past the crossed-out circle, and to a page filled with writing. _Completely_ filled with writing, with several lines of text overlapping each other to the point of illegibility.

"Eh, let's skip this one. Never been able to figure it out, anyway."

Chiyo looked over the page for a few more seconds before heeding this advice and allowing Tamie to continue. There was another thing that bothered her, however, throughout their entire macabre study session. It was clear that Tamie's condition had precluded any sort of activity short of recovery at the clinic.

This suspicion deepened as Chiyo read on, becoming increasingly horrified by the vivid, often gruesome visions Tamie had described at length within the journal. Three things she seemed to notice a lot were bodies hanging—_impaled_, at times—on tree branches... sometimes with this tree being yet another visage of 'him', an impossibly tall, thin man, with a nondescript face and dressed in a spotless suit and tie.

Tamie turned the page again. Since many other pictures required some examination to reveal their secrets, Chiyo instinctively brought the journal level with her head, until she noticed what was right in front of her. She jumped, with a screech, into Tamie's arm, her eyes wide with shock. Just as soon as she'd gripped Tamie as tightly as she could, she began to shake violently.

"Oh, this old thing. I forgot about it, sorry." Tamie picked up the journal and looked more closely at the picture. It was an extremely detailed picture of a forest, except that one of the trees was not like the others, bearing the tell-tale shape of a tall man.

"Wh... what is that?"

"That's him." Tamie frowned a little. "I didn't draw him much in this journal, and most of the times I did, the doc got a hold of them and tore them out. Not sure how this one let slide, though." She nodded. "But that's him. You know, we should probably give him some kind of name, so it's not like we're mentioning the bringer of the end, or some kind of heathen god."

Chiyo was still collecting herself after the scare, but she nodded in agreement. After a minute of deliberation, they settled on the name "Terrence", for no discernible reason.

After they named him, however, Chiyo couldn't help but ask, regarding her questions from before about Tamie... her politeness finally being outweighed by curiosity.

"Excuse me for asking, Tamie, but if you were... in this... institution... for so long, how did you get into high school at the right grade?"

It was a valid question. Tamie hadn't had access to loads of spare time, for certain, but she was still in the proper grade, and from what Chiyo had seen after the confrontation at lunch, she didn't have much trouble understanding the curriculum.

"Eh? Oh, funny thing, that. My doctor... she came up with a brilliant idea to take some recorded lessons from my grade level and play them to me while I was having a spell. She told me that it probably helped me to recover faster, and it made it easier for me to catch up to the right stage."

She sighed. "Still, it would've been nice to go through those years like a normal girl. Not skating the bounds of insanity with that... abomination." Tamie tapped the journal. "I was hoping I'd be done with him, but now he has my best friend, too. Even if she hardly remembers me, we were close once, and I'll be there for her."

"Even if it means facing him again?"

Tamie didn't answer for a few minutes. Since she was normally so dismissive of 'him' and her past, her silence startled Chiyo even more than a sudden spurt of insanity would.

"I... I sure hope so, Chiyo." She murmured.

"L-let's take a break, Tamie... you don't sound very well."

"That'd be best."

Tamie got to her feet. "Want something to eat? We've got something in the fridge, I'm sure."

"Some juice would be nice, if you have it."

Tamie gave a dry chuckle. "As if there was anything else to drink."

"Hm?"

Tamie said no more, leaving the room for the kitchen. As soon as she was gone, Chiyo flopped onto her back and let out an enormous groan of exhaustion. "Terrence"- despite the humor they'd gotten from naming him, it didn't lessen the fear of him like it should have. Tamie had clearly been terrified of him, and still was, to some extent. But Chiyo was scared beyond anything she had ever known. Even the 'Yukari-mobile', her teacher's beat up car and its inability to hold a straight course for more than seconds, paled in comparison.

And she had no choice but to fight "Terrence", no matter who he was, or where. What Tamie was writing now, however, suggested that wouldn't be as much of a problem. Since he was everywhere.

"Hey, Chiyo! Wake up!"

"Huh?" Chiyo hadn't even noticed that she had dozed off, scrambling to her feet as quickly as she could.

"What?" Tamie entered the room, holding a glass of apple juice and a plate topped with hot pockets. "I'm not that loud, am I?"

Bewildered from being awoken so suddenly, Chiyo looked Tamie right in the eye for a few seconds before relaxing.

"Oh, it's just you..." She murmured in relief.

Tamie frowned. "Of course it's just me. Did I scare you?"

"Just woke me up a little suddenly..."

"Woke you up? I was gone for five minutes, and you fell asleep? Besides, I didn't say anything... must be your mind playing tricks on you. Reading about Terrence can do that to you."

"But... you didn't need to shout like that. You scared me."

"Shout?" Confused, Tamie offered the juice. "Ah, forget it. Maybe you're tired or something, and I don't blame you. You're going to need some strength—we'll continue tomorrow, OK? Meet me at the library."


End file.
